The writer's son

The old saying goes that the preacher's child is always the wildest of the bunch. Well, I'm no preacher, but I do make my living stringing together words. I ensure they work well with one another, flow nicely, are used in context, and above all, are spelled correctly. All skills which are, quite sadly, absent in my son.

I've always been fascinated by words, and though I struggled mightily with math, I never had a problem with spelling. Spelling came as naturally to me as breathing.

Which is why my son is going to drive me to an early grave. I don't have obnoxiously high standards for the kid, and I don't expect him to master every subject in school. But spelling is his worst subject, BY FAR, and it tears my heart to shreds each time I watch him take pencil to paper and massacre those wonderful words.

If you think I'm kidding, or prone to hyperbole (as we writers often are), here's my proof: this week's pre-spelling test.



That's right, he missed 18 out of 22 words. EIGHTEEN!

Well, technically, not all of the 18 words were spelled incorrectly. He spelled "blister" right--except it was supposed to be "blizzard." He also spelled "Beth" correctly, although his teacher was expecting "breadth." My favorite may be the word he just made up--"swisted." Although now that I'm writing these out, I'm starting to worry less about his spelling ability, and more about his hearing...

Some of the words he's never encountered in real life, so how could I expect him to spell them right? He wouldn't know thrift if it smacked him upside the head with a coupon, and the closest he's gotten to a catastrophe was losing his Nintendo DS for the past couple weeks (I'd misplaced it, but recently found it--cotastfry averted!). I'll give him some credit though--whoever corrected his paper also spelled it wrong.

I guess I should be more positive. He did spell mistake and giggle right, but he's done both of those a lot. He got simple right--it was simple enough to spell. And he got igloo right, which surprised me--who knew they even discussed igloos in school anymore?

Maybe I am expecting too much. Or maybe it's just that as a writer, it's hard to see him butcher my beloved English language. I certainly don't get upset when he does less than perfect in math--but then again, I always hated math.

Sigh. Maybe I'll start burying books underneath his pillow at night--or his list of spelling words. Maybe he can absorb them by osmosis, in his sleep. And then we'd really find the Beth of his knowledge!